I am a Jesus pusher!!! “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder,’. . . But I say to you” (Matthew 5:21-22). A four-year-old is unwillingly brought to church. He cries, resists, and throws a childish fit as if he did not get a “happy meal” from the fast-food restaurant. What are his parents to do with him? They put him in the corner for a timeout. He needs discipline and rules for his life. He is an immature four-year-old, and when he comes to church throwing a fit, we view him with understanding. However, when a forty-year-old comes to church throwing a fit because he did not get his “happy meal,” one views him in extreme sadness. He needs to grow up!
The Old Covenant rule of “You shall not murder” was needed – we were all four-year-olds. Then Jesus announced the arrival of the Kingdom. He fills our helpless, “four-year-old” state with His sovereign being. Jesus gives us a mature Kingdom view of the Scriptures. As Paul preached to the people of Athens, “Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30). He continues to give us the reason for this reality “because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead” (Acts 17:31). When we are in Jesus, He brings the four-year-old approach to a mature, forty-year-old view. I want to aggressively embrace Jesus to become mature. I want to fulfill the destiny Jesus planned for my life. That can only occur in His fullness. I am a Jesus pusher!!!